Transformative Power of Christ: From Death to Life

he when I'm going to exercise this first power of quickening the dead now the thing I want to emphasize is that he reminds these people people and indeed presses it upon them that this work of his is something that is going to fill them with a sense of Marvel and of Wonder and of amazement and of course the gospels are full of that very thing he told them that it would cause them to Marvel and as he went on with his work you see them marveling what did they Marvel at well they marveled at this that he should spend his time with people like public and Sinners [00:09:17]

as he went about and preached and exercised his authority and power men and women who were regarded as completely hopeless and entirely out outside and Beyond The Pale were suddenly being transformed and became new men and women and everybody looked on in Marvel and wonder and amazement and then you remember when you hurry on to the book of The Acts of the Apostles you see the same thing there do you remember what we are told how after that extraordinary event on the day of Pentecost when the Apostle Peter had preached and 3,000 people had been converted [00:10:19]

and then when he had he he and John had healed that lame men at the Gate of the temple you told that the authorities met together and had a conference about this and they were astonished at all this they said who are these men they're ignorant and unlearned men and yet look look is what what's happening they couldn't understand it they marveled he said they would they couldn't understand these things and then take a very notable instance of all this look how they marveled at what happened to Saul of Tarsus there was something that shook them it's indeed even up to a point shook the church herself [00:11:03]

here is the chiefest persecutor of Christianity the men who hated Christ and all his works and everything he'd ever heard about him here is this men suddenly preaching Christ absolutely changed a new men and indeed Paul himself writes to the Galatians and he says you know exactly he says what happened everybody was astonished all they knew was this that the one who had formerly persecuted the church with such Vigor and vehemence was now preaching the faith that he once persecuted and condemned they Marvel what is this here is something that's come into the world that's changing people turning them upside down as it were making new men and women of them [00:11:41]

Marvel and you know this gospel has continued to have that effect throughout the ages and the centuries when this gospel comes in its truth and in its power it does things that amaze and Astound people for what they see is that men would be in Hopeless drunkards if you like and would lost their willpower and had lost everything and were just sheer helpless in the hands of some such terrible sin everything had been tried Psychotherapy training friends everything and everything had failed suddenly such a man through listening to One sermon becomes absolutely free a new men delivered from his besetting sin and the world looks on in Marvel and wonder and amazement [00:12:36]

Now read the life of all the Saints read the stories of all the great religious revivals and reawakenings and that is what you'll always find the world looked on in astonishment at the Protestant Reformation it looked on in amazement at the Puritans it looked on in AST in an astounded manner 200 years ago here in this city of London while a man like George Whitfield would preach on Kennington common and what was regarded as the lowest in society were suddenly transformed they marveled at it what is this they said what is this peculiar thing now that has been its effect throughout the running centuries [00:13:28]

and I'm emphasizing all this because it is a very essential part of this gospel indeed I want to go so far as to say this that when this power of Christ is exercised in any life and given new life the person himself or herself who receives it also Marvels indeed I'll go further and I'll suggest this that if you my dear friend do not Marvel at yourself sometimes I don't think you're a Christian at all our Lord here says explicitly that when he gives life to a soul it causes Marvel and amazement and it does there is none who Marvels more than the individual himself or herself [00:14:15]

I've quoted the Apostle Paul already let me quote him again I always feel that that was exactly what he was saying in the 20th verse of the second chapter of his epistle to the Galatians once more I live yet not but Christ liveth in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and who gave himself for me you see it don't you I live yet not I he doesn't understand himself he's marveling at himself Something's Happened he is the same man he isn't the same man Christ has come in the life has entered now that's it [00:15:14]

now this I said has to be emphasized for this reason that there are so many who still think of Christianity in such a way as to exclude altogether this element of Marvel and wonder and amazement they think they're Christians but they don't Marvel at themselves and they don't cause anybody else to Marvel oh they've got an idea you see that Christianity means something like this that you just live a good life you certainly need forgiveness you ask God for it and he gives it you and there it is that's Christianity doing your best living a good life being forgiven when you fail and that's the whole of Christianity [00:16:03]

they think that Christianity is just a question of attending a place of worship now and again and keeping within certain limits and that is Christianity they've always has thought they're Christians there's nothing surprising about it always brought up to do it and they've done it they're not surprised nobody else is surprised but the question is my dear friends is that Christianity and I want to try to show you this evening that it isn't Christianity that is not Christianity that's morality that's religion Christianity means receiving this life from Christ it means becoming a partaker of the divine nature it means that he has quickened us has put into us this vital principle of spiritual being and life which changes everything [00:16:53]

I have already referred to a men like George Whitfield that Mighty preacher and evangelist of 200 years ago perhaps the most eloquent preacher the greatest spiritual aror that England has ever known how did he become a Christian well he tells us himself he was religious he was concerned about God he was trying to live a good life and he thought he was a Christian but his friend whom he' met in Oxford called Charles Wesley gave him the Lear of a book written by a Scotsman of the name of Henry skole and the title of the book was the life of God In The Souls of men and as George Whitfield read this book by Henry skugal he came to the conclusion that he'd never been a Christian at all he knew nothing about the life of God in his own soul [00:17:52]

and he realized that all his religion was a kind of legalism a kind of religiosity that it wasn't the thing that skugal was able to show so clearly was taught in the New Testament by the Lord himself and by the apostles and he saw that he'd never been a Christian and he began to seek this and he eventually found it God gave him this life Christ imparted it to him and he became that flaming evangelist but you notice how he arrived at it it was his discovery that true Christianity means having the life of God in one's own soul that's the thing the Lord is speaking about here verily verily I say unto you the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live [00:18:52]